Arkansas trip day 7 - North to Missouri

Today I was a little worried about weather, and I made it a point to pack last night, so, filled w/ Super 8 waffles, I was on the road before 8 AM.  It didn't take long for me to get out of town and back into the Ozark winding roads.  Yesterday, when I started out, there were more pine trees.  Today, there were more oaks, and they were in the middle of brown grass fields.  With the rounded hills, it reminded me a lot of California.

This time I tried to take a few more pictures to give a feel of the countryside.

I took one of the side routes Don had listed as an alternate on the map:  AR 16.  It looked like it was going to follow the ridge line of the hills, and that's one of my favorite things to do.

The chipped stone they put on the roads looks nice, and gives a pretty good riding surface.  And, if I missed that curve, I'd just slide into those nice cushy rolls of hay.

Now, if you look carefully at the picture above (click on it to open larger in another window) you will see that the sign with the arrow on it has buckling occurring between the reflective sheeting and the aluminum.  This must not be 3M reflective sheeting, because the engineer who designed the process to put the adhesive on the sheeting did a way better job than that.  How do I know, you ask? ...........

Doesn't that look like a car with two front ends?   Maybe a Corvair? A classic, but a fixer-upper.

There are rock cliffs above many of the roads.  And the country is so hilly that the roads do the roller coaster thing, or else are occasionally blasted through the rock.

Here's a couple of houses that make a little town at a corner in the road.

Ho hum, another road winding through the hills and cliffs :)

Don - you're sending me to Mountain Home - a stronghold of the KKK!  I even though I needed to pee, no stopping there, no way.

Crossing the Buffalo River

Okay - heading to the town of Peel - that's where the ferry takes me to the Missouri side of the lake.  This lake...

Okay, now I'll try and upload a video of the ferry arriving at the dock.  Note the rain, yes, after using luck and skill, and Don's weather reports, I finally had a significant rain event.  Rained all afternoon - which "dampened" my enthusiasm for taking pictures.

I have a video of the trip as well, but it's taking a long time to upload.  I'll keep checking until midnight, and then go to bed.  (note, didn't make it - try my youtube account

On the way across the lake, the rain got worse.  I reached the other side, and rode to the first place of shelter:  Tony's Pizza.  I stopped, and sure enough, there were two Russian motorcyclists who had stopped there to wait out the rain as well.  They were headed the other way, and left shortly after I got there.  There was a grandfather there with his grandson who wanted to give me advice on which way to go.

Anyway, on the road again, light rain, occasionally stronger, and then I stop at Dawt Grist Mill.  Which is now a restaurant, and they no longer have the mill set up, just the water wheel (not near the water) and some of the parts.  I took video of the sluice and dams, so you can at least get a feel for how the water is brought to the wheel.  I'll put that on youtube eventually.

So I pull into the Super 8 in West Plains, MO, and it turns out the guy behind the desk (Chris) just finished motorcycle mechanic school, and was really interested in the trip, the bike, etc.  We probably gabbed for an hour.  He suggested some roads for my trip north tomorrow, and sure enough, they are exactly the same roads that Don has on the map.  He got me a room on the first floor.  Anyway, the Super 8 in West Plains MO is definitely motorcycle friendly.

Okay, time for breakfast.